An exhibition with a real bang: “Radikal. Real.”

A modern city like this is a marvellous invention. Not everyone will agree with that, of course. But it certainly serves as a brilliant source of material for contemporary artists. Today, the ‘digital natives’ are setting out to transfer real-life experiences into the virtual world in ways that are more or less artistic. Street artists intervene in the city’s design in a highly targeted and subversive manner. And the signatories of the “Déclaration constitutive du Nouveau Réalisme” of 27 October 1960 collected, accumulated, compressed or fixed things they found in the metropolises, particularly Paris. Well, and sometimes they also resorted to more radical methods. Niki de Saint-Phalle fired a rifle at prepared canvases for her “shooting paintings”. Or the object artist Arman blew up a sports car in a quarry. The result is called “White Orchid” and can be seen as a mural at the Kunsthalle Mannheim until 11 October. 

This car no longer needs petrol. Somehow, it seemed only fitting that Christo’s installation “Three Oil Barrels” should also find its way into this exhibition. It was created in 1958, long before Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude began wrapping entire coastlines and buildings. In total, the Kunsthalle Mannheim has brought together around 150 works by Niki de Saint Phalle, Daniel Spoerri, Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, César and many more in the largest exhibition on Nouveau Réalisme in Germany for more than 15 years. Curator Luisa Heese traces how the artists’ group, founded in 1960 by Pierre Restany, turned reality into a medium.

→ About the exhibition “Radical. Real.”